Assessing Present and Future Climate Conditions for Beach Tourism in Jardines del Rey (Cuba)

Abstract

This study assesses, adapting the weather types method, the suitability of the climate in Jardines del Rey (Cuba) for the practice of sun and beach tourism over the period 1991–2014, and the potential future impacts of climate change on this form of tourism on the basis of outputs from the PRECIS-Caribbean Regional Climate Model for the period 2021–2050. The methodology applied makes a classification of daily situations according to the most frequent combinations of climatological variables in tropical areas while focusing on a very specific segment of the tourism market (sun and beach tourism) and taking into account the behaviour of beach users and bioclimatic criteria. The results indicate that the distribution of weather types at the destination during the period 1991–2014 was highly consistent with the monthly distribution of tourists in Cuba, highlighting the existence of a low season from May to October and a high season between November and April. The future scenarios project an improvement in climate conditions for the practice of sun and beach tourism. This improvement is not based on a spectacular increase in favourable weather types compared to unfavourable ones, but rather on a better distribution of both.

Performances of Holiday Climate Index (HCI) for Urban and Beach Destinations in Sri Lanka under Changing Climate

“…Similar studies were carried out by many other researchers in the recent literature, on different countries and locations which are highly vulnerable to climate changes [28][29][30][31]. In addition to that, Gómez-Martín et al [32] stated that beach tourism is significantly vulnerable to climate change. Therefore, island countries' tourism can be significantly impacted by climate change.…”

Climate Change and Thermal Comfort in Top Tourist Destinations—The Case of Santorini (Greece)

“…Although the association between climate change and all aspects of tourism is complicated, global warming is already affecting the tourism industry and will continue to pose a risk to this sector of economy [1,2]. Several studies in the literature investigate the implications of climate change on thermal comfort and how these may affect the presence of tourists in different destinations around the world such as Australia [3], China [4], Cuba [5] and Palma (Spain) [6].…”

Escenarios bioclimáticos de futuro y gestión de destinos turísticos en la región de Jardines del Rey (Cuba)

“…Variación en el porcentaje de tipos de tiempo en Jardines del Rey La notable repercusión que los impactos directos del cambio climático tienen y tendrán sobre los destinos insulares vinculados a actividades altamente dependientes del clima pone en evidencia la necesidad de contar con adecuadas evaluaciones de potencialidad de este recurso, bien para adaptar la actividad turística a los nuevos calendarios, bien para gestionar los servicios y equipamientos turísticos de acuerdo a las necesidades derivadas de las nuevas condiciones atmosféricas, bien para desarrollar en los destinos nuevos productos turísticos que permitan aprovechar las renovadas aptitudes del clima (Gómez-Martín, 2017;Gómez-Martín et al, 2020).…”

“…Buena parte de las aportaciones que han evaluado la potencialidad de los climas para su práctica, se han centrado en la utilización de índices climáticos como el Tourism Climate Index (Fitchett et al, 2017;Mieczkowski, 1985), el Climate Index for Tourism (de Freitas et al, 2008), el Climate Tourism Information Scheme (Lin & Matzarakis, 2008;Matzarakis, 2014;Nastos & Matzarakis, 2019), el Beach Climate Index (Rutty et al, 2020) o el Beach Utility Index (Georgopoulou, 2019), entre otros. Frente a estas propuestas, las evaluaciones turísticas del clima basadas en la aplicación del método de los tipos de tiempo han sido menos numerosas, a pesar de basarse en los estados verdaderos del tiempo y reflejar más fielmente la naturaleza del medio atmosférico por rechazar la utilización exclusiva de un solo elemento climático o la utilización de valores medios (recurriendo al dato diario que es el real y concreto para el hombre) (Barbière, 1981;Besancenot, Mounier & de Lavenne, 1978;Masterton, Crowe & Baker, 1975;Gó-mez-Martín, 2004;2006;Gómez-Martín et al, 2020;Machete et al, 2014;Martínez-Ibarra, 2008;2011;Nourmohammadi & Gómez-Martín, 2023).…”